


Do Better

by WaitingForMy



Category: Starlight Express - Phillips/Stilgoe/Webber
Genre: Angst, Anthropomorphic Trains, Sad CB, Sad Gay Trains, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 22:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14482758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaitingForMy/pseuds/WaitingForMy
Summary: Poppa talks to CB after the race.





	Do Better

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, my StEx debut in AO3!
> 
> I have headcanons as to why CB only slowed Rusty down, when he crashed the others.

“And what did we learn from all this?”

The Red Caboose hugged his knees to his chest and bared his teeth at the old engine, trying to ignore the sharp, metallic throbbing in his shin. He was not in the mood to talk, and _definitely_ not in the mood for one of Poppa McCoy’s life lessons. Unfortunately for him, he was nothing but a boy compared to Poppa, and his _hey, keep away from me, I’m craaa-zy_ tactics didn’t work. Nothing ever worked, not on Poppa.

With a loaded sigh, Poppa leaned on the wall next to CB, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down to his side at the young truck. “Talk to me, CB,” he calmly instructed. “I thought you and Rusty were friends?”

CB groaned. “I just slowed him down! I didn’t crash him. I could’a. Would’a been easy.” He pouted, and the fresh paint on his ruby red cheeks and lips made him look more like a petulant child that a calculating psychopath. Then again, to Poppa, he was nothing but a boy. A petulant child. And he always would be.

A thick, fat silence followed while Poppa waited for his ever-obstinate boy to continue, but his ever-obstinate boy never did. Another loaded sigh followed, and then the old engine’s weary voice: “And in the rematch?”

Ah, the rematch. The crash. The pain.

“I crashed GB and Electra,” The Red Caboose admitted. “You know that. You saw it.”

“And then what happened, CB?” Poppa insisted further.

The Red Caboose snapped, collapsing out of the ball he had made himself into and throwing his hands up in defeat. “Exactly what I was afraid of, Poppa! Rusty won, and that skank took him back.” He grimaced. “She dudn’t love him Poppa, she only wants to be with the champion!”

Poppa knelt down to look CB in the eye. “This ain’t about what Pearl does or does not feel,” he said. “I don’t know what she feels, and neither do you. You got hurt. Greaseball got hurt. Electra got hurt.”

CB shied away from his gaze. “Your point?”

“My point-” Poppa grabbed his boy’s face and turned it back towards him. “-is that Rusty coulda got hurt, too. Is that what you wanted?”

CB twisted his head harshly, wrenching his cheeks out of Poppa’s grip, and swallowed hard around the lump that was forming in his throat. “No.”

Satisfied that he had made his point, Poppa McCoy stood up and dusted himself off, but he kept his gaze trained on his boy. His petulant boy. His poor, poor boy.

“He ain’t ever gonna love you, CB,” Poppa said. “Not the way you love him. It just ain’t how he’s built. As it is, you’ll be lucky if he ever speaks to you, again.”

CB wiped his hands over his face as tears threatened to wash his suddenly arid eyes. He knew that. The geezer didn’t have to rub it in.

Poppa sighed. “You make bad choices, CB. Do better. And son?”

Like a reflex, The Red Caboose looked up at Poppa McCoy, even as the first drops over water fell from his big eyes and rolled over his cheeks. The old engine’s face was tainted with worry, like he was wondering if, next time, his poor boy wouldn’t be so lucky as to make it out of a pileup with a brushed shin.

“Just, please, do better.”


End file.
